It’s not a fulfilling hangout if one does not get to see Kyungsoo pelvic ing in front of Junmyeon’s face.

As disturbing as the thought was when requested by Baekhyun, no one other than the victims of this punishment could deny how entertaining it was watching Kyungsoo with his ears tinted red and hands covering his face; Junmyeon dawning a frozen look of terror while his friends beside him held his hands down to get the full show.

“And time!” Baekhyun exclaimed, the minute long countdown on his phone beeping.

“For s sake,” Kyungsoo muttered while embarrassingly scurrying back to his seat on the floor, glaring at everyone he makes eye contact.

There are about 20 people in this group, all sitting haphazardly in a sort of circle around the living room; most of which, are literally rolling on the floor guffawing at the sinful scene they’ve just witnessed. For the past 37 minutes, these high school teens decided to engage in the typical game of Truth or Dare. In such a short amount of time, Yoora couldn’t believe the amount of events that could happen. Kyungsoo pelvic ing right in Junmyeon’s face,  Tao answering the phonecall from an insurance company by speaking in great detail the delicacy of a supreme pizza, her friend Dahye sticking her whole foot in mud, Xiumin shoving a bucket of ice down his pants, and Jongin wearing a dress for the rest of the night.

“I need to seriously bleach my eyes out.” Junmyeon pushed himself off the couch, maneuvering out of the legs blocking his way to the kitchen.

The boisterous laughter died down after a few moments, and Kyungsoo cleared his throat.

“It’s my turn now….” His eyes scanned until pinpointing his victim, and immediately lightened up. “Yoora, truth or dare.”

And now Yoora is rethinking about how fun truth or dare actually is. She’s at a crossroads. If she chose truth, they can use the opportunity to rehash embarrassing memories of her and use them against her or have her tell them her credit card number. (Luckily, Sehun couldn’t memorize the numbers after asking at the last truth or dare game, and was dumb enough not to write it down).

Dare seems safer, she concludes. All the dares so far were pretty harmless, so what’s the worst that could happen, right?

“Dare,” she said hesitantly. Kyungsoo formed this devious smile on his face and now she’s questioning all the choices she’s made in her life.

“Go to the closet and have seven minutes in heaven with Baekhyun.”

The room is completely silent.

And then everyone is whooping and shouting “OOHH!”

Baekhyun and Yoora both have their mouths gaped, glancing back and forth between each other and Kyungsoo. But Kyungsoo looked so smug; Yoora was sure she couldn’t back out of this one.

“Wait a second!” Chanyeol interrupted, “you can’t just combine two games together it doesn’t work like that!”

“I do what I want,” Kyungsoo hissed, sending a threatening look and raising a fist towards his accuser. Chanyeol squeaked and hid behind a pillow he had in his lap.

The glint in Kyungsoo’s eye rece more. “Allow me to you both.” He hoisted Baekhyun out of his seat and motioned for Yoora to follow him to the gameroom closet down the hall.

At least he had the decency to choose the closet away from eavesdropping ears.

Not that they were going to do anything, Yoora quickly added in her head.

Baekhyun struggled at first to twist the doorknob with his clammy hands and gentlemanly gestured for Yoora to enter.

Kyungsoo sent Yoora a brief look of guilt and apology before shoving his victims into the enclosed space. The lock on the outside clicked in place, startling Yoora and Baekhyun.

“Hey!” Yoora shouted, pounding on the door, “why the heck does this closet lock from the outside and not the inside?”

“Sorry dongsaeng! But my dad installed the door handle incorrectly when replacing it, and never bothered to fix it!” Kyungsoo’s muffled yell resounded.

He wasn’t sorry at all.

Yoora couldn’t completely hate on Kyungsoo for this. Yoora knew he wanted revenge on Baekhyun for embarrassing him in front of everyone. Baekhyun asked Kyungsoo if he’s ever kissed a girl before as a truth, and Kyungsoo, with his pride and all, said he did.

Everyone knew he didn’t.

And thus ensued the consequential pelvic ing.

Poor guy.

But those forgiving ideas were dissipating as Yoora stared at the slight visible outline of Baekhyun’s face, or what she thought was his face, from the little light provided shining under the crack of the door.

“So… you wanna turn on the lights?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Okay then…um…” Yoora could hear the nervousness in Baekhyun’s voice. The dark room sure intensified their senses.

“So, Kyungsoo was pretty funny out there, huh?” Baekhyun chuckled half-heartedly. The atmosphere felt so off, he desperately hoped Yoora would at least make some small talk to fill this deafening silence. Alone. In a crowded closet. Alone.

“Yeah, I still can’t believe what I’ve just witnessed. I’m not sure whether to say I’m mentally scarred or profoundly satisfied of having seeing that once in my life…” Yoora trailed off. Quite frankly, she didn’t really talk to Baekhyun much, so the situation all in all felt awkward. What would be appropriate to talk with him about? Yoora was drawing a blank. They were only acquaintances.

“Same…” Baekhyun paused. He shifted slightly closer to her. “Do you wanna make out?”

Oh good god, Yoora internally groaned.

She was positive that Baekhyun had no dating experience, or any sort of experience with any girl in general. She may only be on an acquaintance basis, but not a complete stranger.

Plus all their friends have no filter in their mouths to give anyone room to save face.

“I guess…?”

She’d be a liar if she said she was experienced in this whole ideal, either.

Baekhyun tentatively reached out in hopes to grasp her arms. Feeling a gentle curve he lightly patted what he thought was a shoulder, but immediately realized that he her (oh ) when he felt her arm move on the other side of his fingers.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Baekhyun coughed, quickly shifting his hands to her waist and pulling her closer to him.

Smooth move, he reprimanded internally.

Using his right hand, Baekhyun cradled the back of Yoora’s head and all too hastily crashed their lips together, teeth clacking. Both let out a soft muffled noise from the abruptness, but nonetheless, continued to keep their lips latched onto each other.

And then both of them panicked.

What am I supposed to do next? Do I stick my tongue in ? Baekhyun’s thoughts were going a hundred miles a minute.

My arms are just sitting there, should I put it around his waist too? No wait, he already has one around me, that wouldn’t really work, right? Yoora slowly raised her arms and rested her hands on his shoulders.

After a few moments of standing there in the same position, Baekhyun moved his lips against Yoora’s timidly. Yoora soon caught the drift, trying to find the groove with moving lips at the same time as he was.

Focusing on when to move her lips, Yoora realized that she hadn’t been breathing. Conflicted on whether to part from him to take a breather or just struggling to take mini short breaths inbetween, she decided with the latter.

Yoora was too overwhelmed with everything going on around her to really process the idea that she was actually kissing somebody. She felt his heavy breathing from his nose hitting the side of her cheeks, his clammy hands gently rubbing up and down her back before subtly slipping under her t-shirt, and his tongue occasionally swiping on her lips. She wasn’t quite sure if she was supposed to stick her tongue out as well, but decided against it.

Baekhyun smiled while kissing her, feeling her hands tighten on his shoulders and absentmindedly pressing herself closer to him. He grabbed a fistful of her hair with the hand the supported her head and accidentally yanked the strands, eliciting a noise from Yoora’s lips. He mistook it as a moan.

A thunderous bang on the door split the both of them apart as if they were repelling magnets, each slightly panting.

“Time’s up!” Kyungsoo yanked open the door with a face that dramatically turned from excited to severely disappointed. The camera he had in his hand dropped to his sides. “I was kinda hoping that I would catch you guys in a compromising position,” moving out of the way to let the both of you exit.

“Always glad to vex you, Soo” Baekhyun slapped Kyungsoo on the back before dashing off.

“Why, you little - !” Kyungsoo mimicked a raised fist of a grumpy grandpa chasing down delinquents, darting after Baekhyun.

Yoora was glad that Baekhyun was too preoccupied to notice her flustered expression when they stepped out the enclosed space. She was also relieved that when she sat back down in her spot in the circle, everyone resumed to the game they were playing and only sent some knowing looks in her direction. She peeked at Baekhyun in her periphery. Something about his flushed face made her feel giddy.

The multiple times Baekhyun glanced towards her that night did not go unnoticed by her either.

Yoora found a sticky note scrawled with a cheesy pick-up line every single day on her desk in homeroom the following week. At first, it was incredibly confusing why this was happening to her. She tried asking some of her friends in the class if they were joking with her, yet they all seemed equally puzzled. But with Baekhyun walking her to all of her classes and trying to sit by her every time during lunch, she put the pieces together.

“I’m just not getting why he’s taken a sudden interest to me,” Yoora commented, biting into her apple.

Since Baekhyun had to go make up a quiz from last week during lunch, Yoora had the chance to ask Minji and Chanyeol, who sat next to her and in front of her respectively, what exactly was going on.

“Didn’t you guys have a steamy make-out session in the closet this weekend?” Chanyeol wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ugh,” Semi threw a fry at him and scowled when he caught it, “We did. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there were feelings needed to be involved.”

“Well… maybe he didn’t see it that way. You were probably so amazing at kissing that he was feeling a little something-something, eh?” Minji sniggered.

“You guys are kidding me!” Yoora exclaimed. She shrunk a little closer to the table when a couple people looked back at her from the outburst. “It was such an awkward experience. I didn’t exactly know what was going on most of the time and I highly doubt he was either.”

Chanyeol and Minji snorted.

“I’m not joking! Kissing someone is just so taxing, you know. It’s really hard to focus on kissing and breathing at the same time –” Yoora paused to flick her companions on the head after noticing them suppressing their giggles. “– and it wasn’t exactly as pleasurable as the movies and books make it seem! It just felt weird.”

“I dunno, Yoora. Sounds like a personal problem to me,” Chanyeol joked before sipping on his Gatorade.

Minji patted Yoora on the back. “At least you got the high school experience, though. Plus it was your first time doing the full on lip lock, so obviously you’re going to need some more practice. Possibly with... Baekhyun.” She playfully nudged Yoora.

Yoora groaned in distress and rubbed her temples.  “Chanyeol, please. You’re his best friend; you should tell him how to understand the situation. Have a bro to bro talk on how the kiss was just a kiss. Nothing else. Because I think I just want to stay as platonic friends.”

“You know, Baekhyun has been asking Jongdae on advice to woo you. All the things he’s been doing? They were probably all Jongdae. And Jongdae’s having a blast. He told me that he planned on telling Baekhyun to write you a love poem and serenade outside your window!” Minji chortled and slapped her thigh.

“Oh, noooooo” Yoora felt like she could face plant herself deeply into the ground.

“Also,” Chanyeol added, “There may have been a time when Baekhyun kept staring at your chest when we had a water gun fight at Luhan’s house once. I think your shirt was slightly see-through, so he saw your bra.”

“What?” Yoora raised her head at him with a petrified look. “I don’t even have big s to begin with!”

“He said you had nice .”

“Oh, shut up!”

A week later, Yoora couldn’t shake the guilty feeling looming over her. Baekhyun had been giving her sweets and delicacies every morning, and buying her her favorite soda every lunch. Although enjoying the free food, she couldn’t take advantage of him like that and lead him on.

The problem? She didn’t want to tell him and see the dejected look on his face.

She wouldn’t say she didn’t try, though. Whenever he asked questions, she always gave short answers. She avoided running into him in the hallway. She attempted to come to lunch early so she could sit around the others in their mutual group of friends. She ignored his calls at night (but used the excuse that she already went to bed).

Yoora grumbled in her seat. The library was going to close soon, and here she was thinking about unimportant matters when she has a major test on the line tomorrow in Economics.

Luckily, the gods were there to help her today.

“Um, excuse me?”

Yoora looked up from her paper.  A petite girl with neatly tied up hair and uniform stood before her.

“Can I speak with you for a moment? If you’re not busy, of course.” The girl’s hands fumbled with her backpack straps.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Yoora removed her backpack from the seat next to her, gesturing for the girl to settle next to her. “Aren’t you in my 3^rd period Calculus class? Jimin, right?” The girl promptly nodded. “Need help with the homework?”

“Actually –” Jimin cleared , “actually, I was going to ask a rather personal question. I was wondering if you were dating Byun Baekhyun?”

Yoora’s eyes widened. “N-no! No, we’re not together. Just friends.”

Jimin’s shoulders relaxed. “So you don’t like him?” Yoora nodded. “Okay. It’s just that I’ve been kind of crushing on him and stuff and I got confused when I saw you guys interacting a lot. Thank you for your time!” Jimin stood up and waved before leaving.

“She likes him, huh...” Yoora mumbled to herself. Then suddenly, she smiled. This was her solution to her Baekhyun problem.

Yoora found where Jimin sat in the cafeteria the next day, and insisted on having her sit with the whole group for lunch. At first, Jimin declined, saying that the offer was kind, but she wouldn’t want to intrude in their circle. But with persistent pleading, Jimin reluctantly agreed.

“Hey guys! We have a new friend with us today! Jimin, everyone; everyone, Jimin.” Yoora sat Jimin right next to her (in front of Baekhyun) after pleasantries were exchanged.

“So how was your day, Yoora?” Baekhyun leaned his head on his palm, looking at her with the usual adoration.

“Superb. Hey, what’s that one show you really like? Game of Thrones? Did you know Jimin here is a big fan of that show?”

Baekhyun turned to Jimin and looked at her as if he’s just noticed her. “Oh, you are?”

“Yeah,” Jimin squeaked. “Can you believe they chopped off Ned’s head? It made me so mad. If someone’s head should be chopped off, it’d be Joffrey’s.”

Baekhyun’s eyes lighted up like the fourth of July. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch your full name.”

“Park Jimin.”

“Park Jimin…” Baekhyun repeated. He smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

The next few days, Yoora noticed a slight emptiness in her routine. Baekhyun wasn’t there to do his usual greeting. She found him talking animatedly in the hallway with Jimin, who was munching on a bar of chocolate. Baekhyun curled a strand of hair behind Jimin’s ears.

Yoora cooed. How endearing.

Sure, she kind of missed the affections Baekhyun used to give her, but does she regret introducing Jimin to him? Heck no.

Yoora power walked to her class, feeling a sense of accomplishment. The day is starting off pretty well.

“Yoora, can we talk?” Baekhyun stood next to Yoora’s locker as she put away some textbooks.

“Wassup?” Yoora shut her locker and faced him.

“Well,” Baekhyun glanced down at his feet before looking her in the eyes. “I need you to know that I’m starting to like someone else.”

Yoora furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head. Baekhyun sighed. “Like, I know for the past month or so we’ve had this thing for each other, but it needs to stop now.”

Yoora finally realized what was going on and pursed her lips to keep from laughing.

“You’re a great person,” Baekhyun continued, “like you’re super amazing and awesome. But I’ve found someone that I have more in common with, and well, feelings change, you know?”

He paused before placing a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Oh God. Yoora released a strained noise before covering with her hand. She hoped this would end quickly, she was that close to burst out cackling.

Baekhyun smiled sadly. “Oh, come here.” Baekhyun pulled her close and hugged her, even adding a couple of pats on the back. “I hope we can still be friends.”

Yoora wordlessly nodded, softly pushing him away before walking off.

As soon as she was at a considerable distance away from him, she heartily chuckled.

She mentally high-fived herself.

Problem solved.